Page 25 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

1 CARBON, CAPITALISM, COMMUNICATION 7

CAPITALISM
The periodisation emerging from scientific research on the Anthropocene
coincides with three distinct phases in the development of contemporary
capitalism. At each stage the impacts on climate change and the natural
environmental have intensified as new developments in the organisation of
production and consumption have added to the cumulative store of
greenhouse gases and the increasing encroachment of extraction and
agriculture on forests and wilderness.
The initial phase, covering the century between 1850 and 1950 saw the
rapid extension and consolidation of industrialised production across the
leading capitalist economies of Europe and North America together with
rising levels of personal consumption and increasing state provision of
essential services. These developments relied overwhelmingly on energy
generated from fossil fuels, coal and later oil and natural gas, significantly
increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which, as
we noted earlier, proponents of the Anthropocene have taken as its sig-
nature index. The rise of industrial capitalism also fundamentally altered
the population balance between rural areas and urban concentrations,
prompting an accelerated mechanisation of agricultural production to meet
the challenge of ensuring adequate food supplies for the rapidly expanding
industrial conurbations. Between 1800 and 1950 the amount of the earth’s
surface that was ‘domesticated’ increased from around 10% to 25–30%
(Steffen et al. 2007: 616). Wilderness and natural habitats contracted, and
deforestation accelerated the significant expansion of meat production,
which increased the volume of the other major greenhouse gas, methane,
released into the atmosphere.
The second phase, between 1950 and 1973, saw three major develop-
ments. Firstly, the escalating consumption of standardised industrial
products, dubbed Fordism after Henry Ford, whose model T automobile
had become the iconic image of rising consumer aspirations, established
itself as the dominant model of capitalist organisation in the countries of
Western Europe, which had previously lagged behind the United States. At
the end of World War II there were 40 million motor vehicles globally. By
1996 that figure had risen to 700 million. Emissions were further boosted
by the rapid increase in international air travel. Images of the pleasures and
comforts of increased consumption, militantly promoted by an expanded
advertising industry, were increasing disseminated on a global basis, raising
expectations and reorienting conceptions of the good life around consumer